Resources

Risk: Floods

Overview: The Federal Highway Administration is run through the U.S. Department of Transportation and is responsible for the upkeep of our roads and highways.

How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a detailed analysis of climate changes’ impact on the U.S. transportation system and what efforts are in place to combat it on the federal and state level.

How to Use This Resource: FEMA’s climate change site provides access to a wide range of its own tools and data, as well as those from other agencies. Links are provided to information on risk mapping, the federal flood risk management standard, coastal flood risks and hurricanes. Search elsewhere within the FEMA site for information on flood insurance, emergency response, and activities in regions of the country, as well as preparing for emergencies.

Overview: The global nonprofit Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative invests in climate resilience worldwide by providing select cities with financial and logistical guidance, and access to solutions, service providers and partners to help develop and implement resilience strategies.

How to Use This Resource: The website provides detailed reports on member cities via a database that allows users to select cities based on region and specific challenges. The site also maintains an active blog.

Overview: The Daily Climate is an independent media organization working to increase public understanding of climate change.

How to Use This Resource: This website curates articles on climate change adaptation, with a focus on international policies, from the world’s top news sources and makes them readily accessible in one location.

Overview: The Climate Desk is a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impacts of a changing climate, including adaptation. The partners are The Atlantic, CityLab, Grist, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Medium, Mother Jones, The New Republic, Newsweek, Slate, and Wired.

How to Use This Resource: The site combines the latest climate-related stories from Climate Desk’s partners, as well as features from its own staff.

Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal agency that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.

How to Use This Resource: This toolkit – designed primarily for water utility managers – focuses on fortifying water infrastructure and provides tools, training, and technical assistance needed to adapt to climate change.

Overview: Climate Central is an independent organization of scientists and journalists researching and reporting climate change in the United States.

How to Use This Resource: Climate Central scientists survey and conduct research on climate change, then partner with journalists to report their findings. The result is this database of scientific research covering topics such as energy, sea level rise, wildfires and drought.

Overview: The Center for NYC Neighborhoods is a nonprofit dedicated to preventing foreclosure, rebuilding after Hurricane Sandy, and promoting affordable homeownership.

How to Use This Resource: This toolkit for New York City residents provides up-to-date information on flood insurance and risk assessment in the five boroughs. It includes an interactive map and a full report on flood insurance.

Overview: The Association of State Floodplain Managers promotes policies that would mitigate losses, costs, and human suffering caused by flooding.

How to Use This Resource: The site includes reports on FEMA and federal flood risk policies, as well as on floodplain management strategies to addresses how American communities are adapting to extreme flooding on a local and state level.

Overview: This website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the federal agency that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment, archives all EPA adaptation resources available to U.S. city and state governments.

How to Use This Resource: The resource offers discussion of the benefits of adaptation and adaptation planning, links to specific plans from New York City, Chicago and Miami, among others, and a wide range of resources and tools.

Overview: Living on Earth with Steve Curwood is a weekly environmental news and information program distributed by the Minneapolis-based Public Radio International.

How to Use This Resource: Living on Earth provides a wide range of environmental news, and frequently focuses on climate change (the site’s search function yields many reports). Special climate change features look at the changing language of climate, climate change and New York’s future, and Louisiana storm protection.

Overview: The Waterfront Alliance is a coalition of nearly 900 New York and New Jersey organizations working to adapt the region’s waterways and 700 miles of shoreline for oncoming climate changes.

How to Use This Resource: The site provides access to the alliance’s public testimony and white papers, as well asto its Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines, or WEDG program, an incentive-based ratings system for resilient building and design. There’s also a report on the region’s recovery efforts since Hurricane Sandy.

Overview: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers investigates, develops and maintains the nation environmental resources.

How to Use This Resource: This report and interactive map details the results of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study of coastal storm and flood risk to vulnerable populations, property, ecosystems, and infrastructure affected by Hurricane Sandy in the North Atlantic region.

Overview: The National Wildlife Refuge System, part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, is dedicated to protecting 150 million acres of land and water from the Caribbean to the Pacific, plus more than 418 million acres of national marine monuments.

How to Use This Resource: This site explains the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model, which is the foundation of sea-level rise planning for the refuge system on the national level. The model provides maps and tables projecting sea-level rise scenarios between 2025 and 2100.

Overview: Climate Central is an independent organization of scientists and journalists researching and reporting climate change in the United States.

How to Use This Resource: This interactive report identifies the major climate threats facing the U.S – flooding, extreme heat, drought, and wildfire – and for each state provides a risk assessment score based on the extremity of weather and adaptive actions in place.

Overview: Climate Central is an independent organization of scientists and journalists researching and reporting climate change primarily in the United States.

How to Use This Resource: This set of interactive tools and maps provides accurate sea level rise and coastal flood hazard data down to the neighborhood scale in the United States, as well as globally.

Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal agency that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.

How to Use This Resource: The Climate Ready Estuaries program works with the National Estuary Programs and coastal management communities to assess vulnerabilities and implement adaptation strategies. This database provides access to risk assessment and coastal adaptation toolkits as well as information on ongoing and future projects.

Overview: The toolkit was developed in 2014 by a partnership of federal agencies and organizations, initially providing federal resources to help address coastal flood risk and food resilience. The site is expanding to address health, ecosystems, water resources, energy supply and infrastructure, transportation and more, as well as to include information from state and local governments, business, academia and NGOs.

How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a catalog of free tools to access and analyze climate data and a visualization tool that maps climate stressors and impacts. The toolkit also has case studies, explainers, training courses and resilience planning tools, as well as the ability to search the federal government’s climate science databases.

Overview: The Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting is an organization within the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography that provides science training to journalists.

How to Use This Resource: In the Climate Science section, journalists will find ample research on how climate change is affecting oceans and how those oceanic changes in turn affect coastal communities and the global climate.

Overview: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the federal organization that develops policies concerned with human health and the environment.

How to Use This Resource: This database of information on the U.S.’s water utilities infrastructure provides a basic overview of its current state, identifies vulnerable regions, and reports on projects currently underway to fortify it.

Overview: The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a federal agency dedicated to the preservation of oceans and the atmosphere.

How to Use This Resource: Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water generated by a storm. And as climate change intensifies the power of tropical storms, storm surge will become one of the greatest challenges facing coastal cities. This fact sheet explains the science behind the surge.

Overview: The Union of Concerned Scientists is an independent consortium of scientists and advocates that work to develop and promote sustainable policies worldwide.

How to Use This Resource: Climate change has put many of the United States’ iconic landmarks and heritage sites at risk. This report is a selection of case studies that illustrate the urgency of the problem. According to its findings, the Statue of Liberty, the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Boston Historical Districts, and Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado could all face dire fates without action.

Overview: The Royal Society is a Fellowship of the world’s top scientists. It is headquartered in London with branches across the globe.

How to Use This Resource: This document is an examination of people’s resilience to extreme weather such as floods, droughts and heat waves. It looks at possible improvements that might save lives by comparing the systems already in place.

Overview: The City of Hoboken Mayor’s Office is one the leading municipal governments in the fight for climate adaptation. Mayor Dawn Zimmer has invested millions of dollars into Hoboken flood resiliency and is a member of President Obama’s Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Local Government Advisory Committee.

How to Use This Resource: Journalists will find a comprehensive report on the climate risks facing Hoboken, N.J., primarily flooding and the need for better storm surge protection infrastructure.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force

Overview: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Hurricane Sandy is a federal agency that oversees disaster relief funding and investment in resilient infrastructure.

How to Use This Resource: This report has extensive data on Hurricane Sandy’s impact on Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and the Shinnecock Indian Nation. It also clearly outlines the strategies federal government has taken and will take to repair and strengthen the coastline’s infrastructure.

Overview: The Union of Concerned Scientists is an independent consortium of scientists and advocates that work to develop and promote sustainable policies worldwide.

How to Use This Resource: As sea levels and flood risks rise, coastal development and a growing population put more people in harm’s way. This report studies how flood insurance reform can better manage growing risk.

Overview: The World Bank is an intergovernmental financial institution based in Washington D.C. that fights poverty by providing loans to developing countries, sponsoring research and promoting policy change worldwide.

How to Use This Resource: The cost of urban losses from flooding in coastal cities will rise 850 percent in 50 years, according to this World Bank report. Its findings are summarized in this article, which includes a link to purchase the full report. The report is part of a series, “Turn Down the Heat,” that looks at expected rises in sea level and their impact on vulnerable regions around the world.

Overview: The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority was established after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, in order to unify the state entities involved with protecting the coastline. For the first time in state history, Louisiana is uniting infrastructural and environmental agencies to produce a more climate-resilient community.

How to Use This Resource: Louisiana is one of the most vulnerable states, as well as one of the most innovative. This master plan details projects that provided relief to areas hit by Hurricane Katrina and lays groundwork for large-scale efforts to fortify the coastline in time for the next extreme storm.

Overview: The Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction is a disaster prevention research nonprofit, established by Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry and affiliated with the University of Western Ontario.

How to Use This Resource: This report breaks summarizes climate trends to date and offers future weather projections in 18 major Canadian regions.

Overview: The Florida Oceans and Coastal Council is a research organization sponsored by the federal government to develop priorities for ocean and coastal research statewide.

How to Use This Resource: This report on the effects of climate change on Florida’s ocean and coastal resources found the state extremely unprepared, because none of its infrastructure was built to accommodate sea level rise. The Florida Oceans and Coastal Council calls for immediate action in this comprehensive guide.